Character of Jesus

Rebel No More

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations. -Ezekiel 36:31

God, in conversion, makes us new men. We are not altered, improved, or mended, but a new life is given us; we become new creations in Christ Jesus. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make us to be born again, and as that which is born of the flesh is flesh, so that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and it hates the old corrupt nature, loathes it, and fights against it to the death. And further, the moving cause for loathing ourselves is the receipt of divine mercy. “Oh!” saith the soul when it finds itself forgiven, “did I rebel against such a God as this! What! has He struck out all my sins from the roll, cast them all behind His back, and does He declare that He loves me still? Then wretch that I am that I should have revolted and rebelled against such a God as this.”

And it is, …when we find that He blots out our sin, that He is all love and all compassion, we yield to Him at once, and then shame comes, to think that it should ever have been needful for us to yield, that we should ever have taken up arms against Him at all. It is a beautiful incident in English history when one of our kings was carrying on war against his rebellious son. and they met in battle, and the son was just about to kill the father, when the father’s visor was lifted up and he saw that it was his father whom he was about to kill. So the sinner, fighting against His God, thinks He is his enemy, but on a sudden he beholds it is his own Father that he has been fighting against, and he drops the weapon of his rebellion, feeling ashamed that he should have rebelled against such mercy and such favour…Your God is good, be ready to repent and be forgiven; rebel no more.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3506.cfm

Mercy’s Humbling Effect

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 5 Comments

Ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities, and for your abominations. – Ezekiel 36:31

It has been the supposition of those who know not by experience that if a man be persuaded that he is pardoned, and that he is a child of God, he will necessarily become proud of the distinction which God has conferred upon him. Especially if he be a believer in predestination, when he finds that he is one of God’s chosen, it is supposed that the necessary consequence will be that he will be exceedingly puffed up, and think very highly of himself. This, however, is but theory; the fact lies quite another way; for if a man be truly subjected to the work of grace in the heart, and if he be then brought to trust in Jesus, and to see his sin put away by the great sacrifice, instead of being lifted up, he will be exceedingly cast down in his own sight, and as he goes on to perceive the singular mercy and peculiar privileges which God’s grace has bestowed upon him, instead of being exalted, he will sink lower and lower in his own esteem, until, when he shall make a full discovery of divine love, he will become nothing, and Christ will be all in all. Mercy never makes us proud. As mercy is given to the humble, it has a humbling effect. Whenever it comes, it makes a man lie low before the throne of the heavenly grace, and leads him to ascribe all honour and glory to the God from whom the mercy comes.

And you that are not saved, oh! suffer not this occasion to pass, let not the days go by without your seeking for that mercy which God so fully gives through His only-begotten Son. Then when you receive it you will be ashamed, and you, too, will magnify the grace that pardoned even you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3506.cfm

“I know that He is God”

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 3 Comments

Then Manasseh knew that the LORD He was God. -2 Chronicles 33:13

Have you ever felt pardoning blood applied? You will never doubt God, I know, if you have. Why, dear friends, if the poorest old woman in the world should be brought before an infidel of the wisest order, having a mind of the greatest caliber, and he should endeavor to pervert her, I think I see her smile at him, and say, “My good man, it is of no use at all, for the Lord has appeared unto me of old, saying, ‘Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love,’ and so you may tell me what you please: I have had a sense of blood-bought pardon shed abroad in my heart, and I know that He is God, and you can never beat it out of me.” As good Watts says, when we have once such an assurance as that,

“Should all the forms that men devise
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I’d call them vanity and lies,
And bind the gospel to my heart.”

O! if you have a sense that sin is forgiven, you can never doubt the existence of a God; for it will be said of you, “Then he knew that the Lord He was God.”…The only question is, Did He die for you? He most certainly did if you are a sinner; for it is written, “It is a faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came to save sinners.” Poor sinner, believe!..O! lay hold on Him, lest death and destruction should overtake thee; fly to this mountain, lest thou be consumed, and remember, once in Christ, thou art safe beyond hazard.

“Once in Christ in Christ for ever,
Nothing from His love can sever.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0105.cfm

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God’s Abundant Mercy and Pardon

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 1 Comment

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. – Isaiah 55:7

I remember an old lady who would not travel by railway because she thought that some of the bridges were in bad repair, especially the Saltash bridge, near her own house. Over that bridge she could not be persuaded to pass, for fear her weight should break it down, although hundreds of tons weight were carried over it every day. At such folly everybody can smile. But when I hear any man say, “I have committed so much sin, that God cannot pardon it,” I think his folly is far greater. Look at this huge train that went over that bridge… Then look at the bridge, and see whether it starts by reason of the loaded teem of wheels which is rolling over it. Ah! no, it bears up, and so would it bear the weight if all the sins that men have done should roll across its arches. Christ is “able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.”

I pray you accept the message. I deliver it to you. The greatest sin, the utmost guilt, the most incredible iniquity, the most abominable transgressions, can be forgiven, and shall be blotted out. The Redeemer lives; the sacrifice has been offered; the covenant is sealed. Turn now to the Lord with purpose of heart. Confess the sins. Abjure thyself. Trust in the infinite mercy of God, through Jesus Christ, His Son. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, for He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3505.cfm

Jesus Christ is Lord of All

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy 3 Comments

At evening time it shall be light- Zechariah 14:7

Darkness has prevailed for a long time, nor does the prospect grow much brighter at present. The noble enterprise of our great missionary societies is not altogether unrequited. The prayers and efforts of a long succession of godly men are not to be accounted vain and fruitless, but we commonly feel more cause to lament than to exult. How little is the world lit up with the light of God yet! Are there more saved souls in the world now than there were a hundred years after Christ’s death? I do not know that there are. A greater surface is covered with the profession of Christianity now, but at that time the light was bright where it did shine. I am afraid to say what I think of the gloom that is hanging in thick folds of cloud and scud, over the nations of the earth. Still the oracle cheers my heart, “At evening time it shall be light.” Some men prophesy that it will not be so. Long ages of delay make them grow impatient. This impatience provokes questioning. Those questions invariably tend to unbelief. But who shall make void the promises of God? Are not nations to be born in a day? Will the wild Arab never bow before the King of Zion? Shall not Ethiopia stretch out her arms to God? As children of the day, doth it not behoove us to walk in the light of the Lord? Divine testimony has more weight with us than the conjectures of benighted men! Christ has bought this world, and He will have it in possession from the river even to the ends of the earth. He has redeemed it, and He will claim it for His own. You may rest assured that whatever is contained in the scroll of prophecy shall be fulfilled according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Notwithstanding any difficulties you may have in interpreting the seals or the trumpets of the Apocalypse, you have no room to doubt that Jesus Christ will be acknowledged King of Kings and Lord of Lords over this whole world, and that in every corner and nook of it His name will be famous. To Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3508.cfm

Lord God, Grant It to Be So!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 3 Comments

He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD -Isaiah 51:3

He says (hear it and marvel!) that He will make the wilderness like Eden. You know what Eden was. It was the garden of the earth in the days of primeval purity. Fruit and flower, lofty tree, and lively vegetation abounded there in profuse luxuriance. I know not how its groves and shrubberies were tenanted by graceful creatures and lovely birds, but I can well imagine that every sense of man was regaled by its unfailing charms. No thorns or thistles cursed the soil, no sweating brow with arduous toll forced the crops from barren sods. The land laughed with plenty. The river, branching into many heads, watered the garden. God Himself was pleased to water it with the mists, and to make the fruits grow, to swell in rich abundance, and early come to mature perfection. So the Lord says that when He visits His Church He will make these poor backsliders, these immature Christians, these nominal professors, like Eden. Oh! that the Lord would do it! Oh! that He would make them healthy, fruitful, prolific in fruitfulness, and spontaneously fruit-bearing, so that we should almost have need to say, “Hold, Lord!” just as Moses and Aaron did when the people brought in the offerings for the Tabernacle, until there were more than enough. Oh! that the Church of Christ may be enriched with all spiritual gifts, with all heavenly graces, with all that can minister to the welfare of the saints, to the advantage of the world, and to the glory of Him who created and redeemed us! God grant it may be so!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3514.cfm

The Lord Comforts His Church

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

For the LORD shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places… -Isaiah 51:3

Beloved, we make but sorry comforters for God’s people unless Jehovah puts His own hand to the work. I have sometime tried to cheer up my brethren when they have been desponding, and I hope not without success; yet I have always felt that to relieve and refresh a desponding saint, I must fetch the remedies from my Master’s pharmacy. So, doubtless, those of you who have ever sought to obey the command, “Comfort ye, comfort ye My people,” must have found that it was not your word that could comfort Zion, nor your sympathy, but God’s truth applied by God’ Spirit, for this alone can comfort Zion. Oh! blessed promise! “The Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort her waste places.” He that made the heavens will become the Comforter of His people. The Holy Ghost, who brooded over chaos, and brought order out of confusion; the mighty Spirit who came down at Pentecost in tongues like as of fire, with a sound like as a mighty rushing wind-that same blessed Spirit will come to the hearts of the members of His Church and comfort them. There are sorrows for which there is no solace within the reach of the creature; there is a ruin which it would baffle any mortal to retrieve. Happy for us that the Omnipotent comes to our aid. It is “He who telleth the number of the stars; calleth them all by their names”; who also “healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds!” Where He is, rolling the stars along, filling heaven with wonder as He creates majestic orbs, and keeps them in their pathways, making the comet fling its gorgeous light across space and startle nations, holding the burning furnace of the sun in the hollow of His hand; yet He stoops down to minister to a desponding spirit, and to pour the oil and wine of heavenly comfort into a poor distracted heart! Yes, it is Zion that is to be comforted, but it is Jehovah Himself who has promised to be her Comforter! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3514.cfm